AFL Power Rankings: Round 3 (or I give up caring)

There is nothing worse than seeing your side play terrible footy, especially when you have a nagging thought in your head that they are not going to play any better: so it is for Crows’ fans this week – who are also thinking why did we pick this year to be useless and injury prone, a year when Gold Coast will get most of the draft picks.

But that’s the negative, on the positive side was a truly great game of footy between Fremantle and Geelong – a game that showed two of the greats of the game, Pavlich and Ablett, play a few rounds of “anything you can do I can do better”. Pavlich came out the winner, as did the Dockers, whose fans must be feeling like this is some amazing dream.

I’ve still got the Cats above the Dockers, because I believe in a neutral venue the Cats would be ahead; similarly I rate Carlton just above the Bombers because I’m not all that sold on Essendon and they just seem to have the wood on the Blues – also Carlton are playing without Judd, so you know they’re going to get better.

The big question is the Saints: they’ll be without Riewoldt till maybe Round 13, a huge gap to fill (and let’s be honest, they can’t fill it). It makes Jonathon Brown a short odds chance for the Coleman Medal – and you’d have to figure his odds of winning the MVP would also be pretty short (forget the Brownlow – it’s a midfielders only award). 

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
	1	1↔	St Kilda	3-0	A massive win for the Saints, but the loss of Reiwoldt will be equally big, especially as they now face a charged up Dockers
	2	3↑	Bulldogs	2-1	A big win, that has the Bulldogs loss in Round One looking like just a blip.
	3	6↑	Brisbane	3-0	Did it well over Port – though they really dropped the ball in the last 1/4 and thus blew a chance for a good percentage boost.
	4	2↓	Geelong	2-1	The Cats looked like always doing enough to get over the line, but the Dockers were not to be denied. They’ll be angry when they play this week at Kadinia Park for the first time this year (poor Port).
	5	9↑	Fremantle	3-0	This just in – the Dockers are the real deal. Now they meet the Saints in the match of the round – bet you wouldn’t have said that 3 weeks ago.
	6	4↓	Collingwood	2-1	4.17 won’t win many matches, let alone against the best. They were goalless in the second half, and to be honest have played poorly for the last two games.
	7	5↓	Hawthorn	1-2	The Hawks look a top 8 side, but not top 4.
	8	7↑	Sydney	2-1	Let’s be honest, beating Richmond tells us nothing. And with North and the Eagles up next they should be 4-1 when they meet the Lions in the rivalry round.
	9	8↓	Carlton	1-2	A bad loss, that makes it two in a row for the Blues, who are looking like they need a gun forward, and midfielder. Judd will be back in 2 weeks, but the forward is still to be found.
	10	11↑	Essendon	1-2	Essendon just seems to match up well against Carlton. They need to beat the Eagles to be even on wins and losses before the annual Anzac Day money spinner.
	11	10↓	Port Adelaide	2-1	Port were outclassed until the game was effectively over. Now they have Geelong followed by the Saints…
	12	13↑	Melbourne	1-2	Good to get the win, but beating the Crows is not that big a deal.
	13	12↓	West Coast	0-3	The Eagles could never really get close enough to trouble North. Now they go back to the safety of Perth in search of a first win.
	14	15↑	North Melbourne	1-2	North get their first win, but to say they were impressive would be a big overstatement.
	15	14↓	Adelaide	0-3	They kicked just 1 point in the last quarter against Melbourne. Completely pathetic. All teams have to do to beat the Crows is kick more than 50 points. Neil Craig’s coaching should be under serious scrutiny.
	16	16↔	Richmond	0-3	It seems the Tigers’ strategy is to hope teams stop trying once they get out to a 10 goal lead.